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Francesca Persaud
summary ॐ this revolution, baby, proves who you work for lately Francesca Persaud (in full: Francesca Daniela Magdalena Rejin y Persaud) is a mercenary, sometime spy-for-hire (handled by an organization called Numen, clandestinely affiliated with the corporation Telesis International), and occasional thief operating in a world that parallels our real-life one, though with a supernatural underside. She does not really enjoy her job, owing to not being a sociopath, but she can barely remember ever doing anything else, having been corralled into it at thirteen years old. Medellin isn't as bad as people say, but there's still trouble to be found all over the world, if it wants you, and it wanted to get a hold on Francesca from the day she was born. Her background is half-Indian -- her mother was part of the East Indian minority community in Colombia -- and her estranged father was a Yazidi Chechen. She is five foot nine, one hundred and thirty-five pounds, with light/olive skin, large green eyes, and curly reddish-brown hair; she is somewhat delicate-looking, despite her occupation. Contrasting that ostensible fragility are her more distinctively cosmetic features, which include the scars arcing over her right arm, toward the underside, and a fainter scar over her left cheek, extending from under the outer corner of her eye to just beneath her ear. She has two tattoos, the first being the Mucha piece seen in the icon above, and the second being narrow phoenixes with tails stretching into low dagger points over her hips, to mark her as a member of her organization, here: She typically dresses in a high-end but not terribly flashy way, although she is partial to a lot of silk and leather (especially in a pencil skirt or tall boots) -- black and white with jewel tones. Additionally, she wears an antique wedding ring, despite never having been married or ever entertaining it as an option. Her standby perfume is Robert Piguet's Fracas, which is a legendary 40s scent with notes including Indian tuberose absolute, smoky iris, orange blossom, carnation, peach, musk, moss, and sandalwood; it is described as "sexual but never loud, smoky but never without sweetness", and a "quintessential dark feminine". Sephora calls it "the fragrance of commotion, tumult and chaos of the heart," because perfume reviews are hilarious. world info ॐ who do you work for, baby, and does it work for you lately? Numen is a supernatural and criminal organization clandestinely backed by Telesis International, a pharmaceutical company that also pioneers genetic testing and advancement. Numen's members may be political in nature, or they may be ordinary people; businessmen and bus drivers are part of their ranks, but it does have its members who are so tied to the cause they no longer have anything resembling normal lives and careers and are tattooed to demonstrate as much to Numen affiliates. The group is also multiversal, utilizing similar or useful universes via the Nexus to enhance its own technological know-how or sometimes simply to profit, if need be. Besides your run-of-the-mill theft (of objects and information) and terrorism to earn money, one of the primary markets controlled by Numen is the genetic modification black market which centers around the abduction and vivisection of supernatural beings in order to augment ordinary humans with their abilities, whether because said humans simply want to fly and happen to have the millions required to undergo the procedure, or because Numen itself likes to make sure its operatives have lots of advantages in the field. Some of them had preexisting abilities, most of them minor (because heavyweights are by nature hard to find), but they can still do a lot with a blank canvas. history ॐ made of abandoned wood loose stones and such Francesca is the youngest of two children born to Zabel Persaud, an East Indian woman whose family had been living in Colombia for several generations; Francesca is also the product of an affair, unlike her older sister Genoveffa, whom she hasn't seen for almost seventeen years. Zabel privately carried on with a man named Ramih Kazbekov, whom she believed to be a Chechen tourist for the seven-month duration of his visit- and she was right about the Chechen bit, anyway. The family was temporarily knocked off-balance, and Francesca grew up with a strong sense of being an 'other' that didn't entirely have to do with her scandalous background; she saw her father only twice a year. Medellin is in most places awfully poor, and the Persauds lived in a poor area - they saw the rise of drugs, the cartels, the unrest, the violence. The girls were, from a pretty young age, acquainted with a kind of dangerous living that isn't really seen in most of the English-speaking world--but like most children, Francesca only realized that wasn't the norm when she grew up a little bit and saw how other children in Colombia and the rest of the world lived. Furthermore, she's given to understand that Medellin is much improved since the days of her childhood, although she is personally acquainted with the troubles of other parts of Central and South America. The East Indian minority has grown, too, but she remembers that they were always a bit different- and that she was different among them, resembling her Chechen father as strongly as she does. She can pass for a multitude of ethnic backgrounds, but she doesn't forget her own origins on either side. Not all Yezidis are Kurds - some are Arabs, and a slim minority are Chechens, who already have a pretty rough time of it in Russia. Ramih's family had converted in his great-great-grandfather's time, and like some other Yezidi families in the world (eight, to be precise), they were given the gift of angelic blood, of witchcraft, and it stayed with them ever since. Of the five surviving "new" lines, Francesca's is the middle. Like many of those descendants, Ramih frequently got himself into trouble, and when Francesca was twelve - shortly after her older half-sister came out of the closet and went off to London - she was taken as payment for that trouble. Initially, it was intended to be a hostage situation, but Ramih never paid up, and rather than kill the girl, his enemies saw her usefulness in the field- her resourcefulness, her cunning, and her lack of dramatics. She was a sometimes unsettlingly quiet child, becoming more outgoing with age - if never quite the sparkly, needy, girlish type, and always much too inclined to compartmentalize - but most of the time she gave the impression of great energy contained- and this seemed malleable enough. It was during the training that ostensibly malleable nature surprised them. The child that resulted from a tryst with one of her peers (whom she later killed, because he knew, and he wasn't any better than any of the others; she couldn't leave the trace) - they'd never been taught to protect themselves was the provocation for her first and only attempt at leaving the organization called Numen. Her escape lasted eleven months, and that was really all she needed- she knows the name of the boy she had, but she doesn't want to know specifics and it's better if she doesn't in case anyone discovers it happened, since she can't be coerced into giving up information she doesn't have. Fifteen, and she had to regain her handlers' trust. Numen changed as an organization over the years, as Telesis International, its respectable public face, became more powerful- its operations were slicker and more efficient, and Francesca had to learn how to adapt. Many of the field operatives were primarily social with occasional forays into physical violence, or primarily assassins with incidental moments of social networking, but she'd blended the two to such a degree that it led to her being permitted to lead teams in the field, although she was always expected to report back to her operations officer back home. She's nearly thirty now, if an astonishingly young-looking thirty, and she's still Numen's trusted weapon, teenage rebellion long-gone- and that trust means she gets a lot more room to maneuver independently than the average field operative. In cases of interdimensional or Nexus-based missions (which are particularly useful in the cases of, say, art or jewel theft- other worlds' stuff and intel can be incredibly useful, especially financially), she's often without communications for days, only reporting in once a week unless there's an emergency, and Francesca really likes to avoid those. The difficulty is, it wasn't "teenage rebellion" that led to her running away. It was just herself- and somehow, despite everything, she's managed to stay herself- which is both what makes her so good at what she does and what makes her one of Numen's biggest variables in their quest for control of the world's economy and political future. Aliases: * Evelina Sokolov means "life's falcon" in Russian because Francesca likes to do that with her names. This is her current alias. * Seda "Sai" Abramov means "Star of Abraham", although the nickname "Sai" means "deer" and is meant to suggest elegance. It is is a Chechen alias. * Hazar Neman means "nightingale blood"; it is primarily an Afghan alias. * Ariana Javed means "Afghanistan eternal". ...and it is an Afghan name. * Hawa Yamha Nouri means "life's dove shining with light"; Iraqi. * Fahadah Qazi means "leopardess judge"; this is Francesca's most popularly known alias and the one most of her hits are performed under, but there are no records, and no face, or photo ID attached to the identity, though it is supposedly Omani in origin. * Anjuli Shah (Hindi) means "unconquerable ruler"; it's an Indian name, obviously. * Zarka Nizamani is a Pakistani name meaning "crane-bird," with Nizamani being a large, respectable clan's name. * Aleta Guerrero means "winged warrior"; Mexican ID. * Paloma Arroyo means "dove's watercourse"; Cuban ID. * Guadalupe Garza de Castro means "river of the wolf, sign of the dove castle"; Venezuelan ID. * Robin Black is self-explanatory; Canadian passport attached. * Simone Gauvain means "listening white hawk"; French. * Perihane Sultana is Persian, meaning "fairy eagle queen". Iranian. * Dabih is a code name, which is also the Arabic name for the star Beta Cap. It means "the lucky star of the slaughterer". * There will probably be more. Properties: * Isle of Dogs, London. * Docklands, London. personality ॐ that's when it turned on me, a motorcade of meant-to-bes Left to her own devices, Francesca would have been quiet, but irrepressible - the type of person who is meant for disaster situations and classroom leadership. Naturally unflappable, this has been honed and developed throughout the years, channeled into a terrifying single-mindedness--she's not going to quip before she kills someone, and she's not interested in indignant verbal sparring with her enemies. There are people who are feisty and sassy and expect it to be interpreted as cute, and then there are people for whom "spitfire" means "more destructive than an arsonist", in that fire, too, is single-minded in its purpose. This has given her something of a reputation among people who know her actual job, and who are likely to be brought in; if they hear she's coming, it's not uncommon for them to try to run. She hates it when they do that, but she understands why. Unstoppable determination aside, she's not actually the emotionless automaton one might expect after her years of training- and when she's not singularly focused on achieving a goal, she's capable of banter and laughter like anyone else, though she is, quite frankly, not prone to laughing half as much as she might smile; she is not won easily, but arguably the value of that which is more difficult to acquire can heightened. A lack of emotional intelligence would make her a brutish tool, but a battleax, while it gets the job done, is not nearly as useful as more sophisticated weaponry (capable of working on more than just physical levels); thus, she has been given the room to develop as an adult, to develop her own tastes and quirks, though these are absolutely not immune to being affected by her her unusual coming of age. (She nitpicks action movies, at least in her head. It's hard not to!) women ॐ parades of beauty queens, where soft entwines make kindling girls men ॐ these many detailed things, like broken nails and plastic rings boys powers ॐ will win by keeping me from speaking to my new darling * Reincarnation * Entropy/chance * Physical training music & inspiration ॐ and there's no way to know our future foe scenarios Laura: I'd rather not discuss what I do. Will Randall: You know, I think I understand what you're like now. You're very beautiful and you think men are only interested in you because you're beautiful, but you want them to be interested in you because you're you. The problem is, aside from all that beauty, you're not very interesting. You're rude, you're hostile, you're sullen, you're withdrawn. I know you want someone to look past all that at the real person underneath but the only reason anyone would bother to look past all that is because you're beautiful. Ironic, isn't it? In an odd way you're your own problem. Laura: Sorry. Wrong line. I am not taken aback by your keen insight and suddenly challenged by you. - "Wolf", 1994 "But there was such youth and grace in her form! she was beautiful as a woman! the blond fur of her robe mingled well with the delicate tints of faint white which marked her flanks. The profuse light cast down by the sun made this living gold, these russet markings, to burn in a way to give them an indefinable attraction. The man and the panther looked at one another with a look full of meaning; the coquette quivered when she felt her friend stroke her head; her eyes flashed like lightning-- then she shut them tightly. "She has a soul," he said, looking at the stillness of this queen of the sands, golden like them, white like them, solitary and burning like them. ... "He said--`I don't know if I hurt her, but she turned round, as if enraged, and with her sharp teeth caught hold of my leg--gently, I daresay; but I, thinking she would devour me, plunged my dagger into her throat. She rolled over, giving a cry that froze my heart; and I saw her dying, still looking at me without anger. I would have given all the world--my cross even, which I lied not then--to have brought her to life again. It was as though I had murdered a real person; and the soldiers who had seen my flag, and were come to my assistance, found me in tears.` "`Well sir,` he said, after a moment of silence, `since then I have been in war in Germany, in Spain, in Russia, in France; I've certainly carried my carcass about a good deal, but never have I seen anything like the desert. Ah! yes, it is very beautiful!` " `What did you feel there?` I asked him. "`Oh! that can't be described, young man. Besides, I am not always regretting my palm trees and my panther. I should have to be very melancholy for that. In the desert, you see, there is everything and nothing.` Yes, but explain--` "`Well,` he said, with an impatient gesture, 'it is God without mankind.`" -- A Passion in the Desert, Honore de Balzac. David Berkley - "Fire Sign" :: These are the scars you'll never show; she is a fire sign, you know. One day you're near, and then you go. Here is a looking-glass; what do you see? There's nothing there but me. There was a wishing well I jumped into. Nothing came true. There was a war you had to find, it echoes in your mind. You'll surrender; these are the lessons that you learn. One day it's clear, and then you burn. Edwin Collins - "Never Met a Girl Like You" :: You've made me acknowledge the devil in me, and I hope to God I'm talking metaphorically. Lady Gaga - "I Like It Rough" :: I know you're outside banging, but I won't let you in; I'm a hard girl, loving me is like chewing on pearls. Damien Rice - "Volcano" :: Like a new disease, she's still too young to treat. Evans Blue - "The Tease" :: Big city lights shine on my big city girl; I hope there comes a time when I get to see your dirty mind. Hold your hands into the sky; pray for mercy instead of time. You are the massacre, the masochist, the tease. Vienna Teng - "The Tower" :: "I need not to need; I've always been the tower." She carries the act so convincingly, the fact is sometimes she believes it, that she can be happy with the way things are, be happy with the things she's done- and yet. Matthew Sweet - "Dark Secret" :: You are sickened by the weakness of a heart that's filled with fear. And if the world won't understand you, you can make it disappear, because it's a dark secret that you carry with you. Deep inside, the way you hate them, on the outside doesn't show. And though they think that they will find you, they are slave to what you know. It's a dark secret you carry with you. Van She - "Sex City" :: In the dark, we come out and play; we are its children, and we are here to stay. Your heart sings to me, running feet through your blood. The ghosts inside you soon won't be. Still can't say she won't start up a fight, in the city of life she can't wait; hungry for death, hungry for life. Patrick Wolf - "Magpie" :: You can run on, run along home between the knees of her. All among her bracken and her ferns, and the boy will have her name. We will sing: one for sorrow, two for joy. Three for a girl, four for a boy. Five for silver, six for gold. Seven for a secret never to be told. The Distillers - "Hall of Mirrors" :: I come down like a bloody rain cuts up flesh sky, pulse beating under; meat petals bloom in a bone garden. Ain't no god, no Christ gonna save you now. I sell souls at the side of the road, would you like to take a number? Come get what you come for, don't waste my time. I watched you burn in the eye of my sun. The Shins - "Girl Sailor" :: You've won one too many fights, but you won't win here tonight. You've made it through the direst of straits all right; can you help it if plain love now seems less interesting? Does anything I say seem relevant at all? You have been at the helm since you were just five, while I cannot claim to be more than a passenger. You are not some saint who's above giving someone a stroll through the flowers. You've got so much more to dream of. Oh girl, sail her, don't sink her this time. The Hold Steady - "Cattle and the Creeping Things" :: I guess I heard about original sin. I heard the dude blamed the chick. I heard the chick blamed the snake. I heard they were naked when they got busted. I heard things ain't been the same since. I heard Gideon fucked you in Denver. She's got a cross around her neck that she ripped off from a schoolgirl in the subway on a visit to the city. She likes how it looks on her chest with three open buttons. She likes the part where one brother kills the other. She has to wonder if the the world ever will recover, because Cain and Abel seem to still be causing trouble. Garbage - "Metal Heart" :: I wish I had a metal heart; I could cross the line. I wish that I was half as good as you think I am. But now that we know for sure they're telling lies when they say no one gets hurt, and therefore nobody dies. You know, it's hard to believe anything that you hear--they say the world is round. The world is round? I wish I was as big as you, you'd have to tell the truth, and I'd be nothing you could hurt, nothing you could use. Yeah Yeah Yeahs - "Mystery Girl" :: It was the struggle of the century, and all the grown men came to see the girl who could tame the tigers. The heart of the southern mothers, they found her under the sea; she said she came from cell block 3. The girl hit hard like a barracuda, baby, she floated on air like the crest of a wave. She was a primal institution, she was a danger to herself. I love mine cold-hearted. Take a deep breath, babe, because we just started. Florence + the Machine - "Rabbit Heart (Raise It Up)" :: This is a gift; it comes with a price. Who is the lamb, and who is the knife? Midas is king, and he holds me so tight, as he turns me to gold in the sunlight. I must become a lion-hearted girl, ready for a fight before I make the final sacrifice. This is a gift. The Fratellis - "Flathead" :: Well, just because she feeds me well and made me talk dirty in a pink hotel doesn't mean she's got eyes for me; she might just want my bones, you see. Hey, flathead, don't you get mean, she's the second-best killer I ever have seen. They don't come much more sick than you; I could go on, if you want me to. It's just so wrong, so very nice, and I told you once but you killed me twice. Said, I heard you kicked a boy til he bled. storylines ॐ that's when it turned on me, where bobby pins hold angel wings storylines ooc ॐ it's alright Francesca Persaud (and her million aliases) is an original character from an original universe, which is centered around The London Mysteries, more characters from which can found here and in its affiliated category. She is PBed by actress Lisa Ray, and the lyrics used are from Silversun Pickups' "Future Foe Scenarios". Francesca is also open for all flavor of shenaniganery, and interested parties can feel free to hit me up, although saying this here is silly when I...know all the people in game, whatever. Full perfume list, for my nerds: * Bat-Sheba by Judith Muller, 1966 (worn third-most; honeyed rose dipped in spice, sandalwood, patchouli, and amber, elegantly structured, evocative of Sophia Loren, lavish and narcotic in its allure; aldehydes, cardamom, orris, bergamot, rosewood, jasmine, rose, carnation, patchouli, vetiver, castoreum, amber, leather, oakmoss) * Caleche by Hermes, 1961 (worn fourth-most; elegant, woodsy, forbidding, for "not easy" women who prefer animals over people; cypress, rose, musk) * Chypre by Coty, 1917 (sixth-most; complex, warm, sparkling, discreet, the perfect "intimate" perfume; jasmine, lilac, vanillin, oakmoss) * Farnesiana by Caron, 1947 (gourmand, "fit for a queen", marzipan-like almond note, Middle East evocative; lilies, jasmine, mimosa, farnesol, violets, vanilla, musk) * Fracas by Robert Piguet, 1948 (primary perfume; above) * Fille d'Eve by Nina Ricci, 1952 ("diamonds on a black velvet dress, fading to show the lingerie beneath", a little dirty-sexy; honeysuckle, rose, plum, incense, musk) * Golden Autumn by Prince Matchabelli, 1958 (leafy, golden, rich and cool, fall weather; amber, hyacinth, rose, cinnamon, vanilla) * L'Aimant by Coty, 1927 (a golden cloud on vanilla base, warm, glowy, not without attitude; neroli, peach, jasmine, rose, civet, vanilla) * Le Dix by Balenciaga (worn second-most; a more sensual but still work-appropriate Shalimar- dirty-but-vanilla, carmelized violet petals, a hint of spice, crisp-but-creamy like a tailored white silk blouse with just a little cleavage and a diamond pendant; rose, jasmine, violet, ylang-ylang, lily of the valley, iris, civet, musk, vetiver, sandalwood) * Miss Dior by Christian Dior, 1947 (bright, sharp, elegant, work-appropriate, "champagne for lunch fabulous"; sage, gardenia, patchouli, oakmoss) * My Sin by Lanvin, 1925 (for "a woman who doesn't even have to try", decadent, elegant, "flowers and lust"; bergamot, rose, clove, musk, vanilla, woods, civet) * Shalimar by Guerlain, 1925 (dreamlike, classic, powdery, sweet, associated with another time period entirely; bergamot, iris, opopanax, vanilla) * Vacances by Jean Patou, 1936 (fifth-most; breezy, summery, "heartbreaking," described as "the greatest green floral in history"; hyacinth, galbanum, lilac, woods) * Vent Vert by Pierre Balmain, 1947 (character favorite; dusky, smoky, haunting deep emerald green, like rolling hills framed by mountains and flowers after a rainstorm, with "something fierce and savage" about it; gardenia, peach, rose, muguet, orrs, jasmine, hyacinth, oakmoss, styrax, vetiver, amber, musk) * Zen by Shiseido, 1964 (Nordstrom calls it "quiet yet sensual, tempting yet innocent," meaning it's well-rounded, going from sparkly and floral at the start to plummy, lush, and velvety, like getting to know the perfume with time, with a nonchalant "strap over the shoulder" kind of sensuality to it- warm and otherworldly, spicy and floral, expressive but not obtrusive; galbanum, orange blossom, rose, violet, narcissus, mimosa, carnation, cedar, sandalwood, oakmoss, and amber.) Category:Characters Category:Living